Twilight - No sex please we're vampires!

My copy of Twilight has a white cover with red edged pages, I deliberated over the white cover or the black cover, but the white cover appealed as did the red edged pages almost as if dipped in the pure blood of innocent mortals.  The cover image is of two porcelain hands cradling a red apple.  It is actually a romantic image with the red apple, the vampire, tempting even sinful but cradled by the pure hands of an angelic young female.  There is no conflict or seduction here, the suggested vampire is not bloodthirsty or intent on seducing young maidens and then devouring them.  We all understand the vampire image and its potent sexual allure.  Indeed, I have female friends who swoon at the thought of Damon Salvatore using his eyes, yes ladies, to compel you.  The Vampire Diaries seems more lustful than Twilight, the vampire characters do compel us and we are not repelled, the aesthetic is more denim and leather, sexy and modern, not a crushed velvet piece in sight.  There is a love triangle, lots of desire and some violence and cruelty, but still, like Twilight,  tortured souls and very human emotions.  The Vampire Diaries is rock and roll where Twilight is more EMO; for sensitive souls.  Back to Twilight and the cover which promises a romance between an innocent mortal and a beautiful, tragic vampire with the apple tempting and red and the innocent purity of the girl’s hands that hold and control that temptation. 

In fact when you get into Twilight you realise that the vampire genre is a construct to explore a romance that has constraints and that those constraints make it appear even sweeter.  Teenagers especially, a group who have devoured Twilight and its following four or five books, understand what it is to be restrained when they desire to do something forbidden or dangerous.  Stephanie Meyers could be accused of writing a novel about abstaining from sex encouraging young people to stay chaste.  She is happy to say that she is ‘straight laced’ and is a member of The Latter Day Saints.  The question I would ask of Stephanie is, “is it morally correct to think about sex and have desirous thoughts about Edward, but not morally correct to er, rip each other’s clothes off and go for it?”  I detect a moral stance in Meyer’s novel and the mechanic that if they did have sex Edward could kill her, is slightly repulsive to me.  What I really accuse Stephanie Meyers of is writing a novel that directly appeals to teenagers and the teenager that remains in adults.  She has understood how to string us along for five books and several films thus making a lot of money out of desire and fantasy.  Bravo! 

So we have Edward, at first a mystery to Bella but she is not fooled and she finds out that yes he is a vampire!  This revelation does not turn Bella away, she can’t get away from him and his eyes and sensitivity.  A sensitive vampire who rather than feast of the blood of an innocent young lady wants to protect her and welcomes her into his vampire family.  These vampires are beautiful, wealthy and of course intelligent, but I don’t think there have been many stupid vampires in literature or film.  They have the ability to appear aloof and do things with ease and grace, along with the cars and beautiful clear skin, teenagers crave. 

Bella is the outsider who becomes an insider with the beautiful and mysterious Cullens.  She is hapless and helpless; this is actually quite annoying because any feminist sensibilities you may have are jarred by Edward’s stance as her protector.  In fact, Bella is saved from being crushed by a van in chapter three and then faints in chapter five at the sight of blood by her hero Edward. This is before we even get into the real vampire story.  Another idea that may well make us feminists wince is the suspicion that this whole series of novels, this great epic, will end the only way women would want things to end.  She becomes a vampire, they can quench their sexual thirst and Bella stays young and beautiful with her young and beautiful vampire husband.  Isn’t that is exactly what us women really want?  To be eternally youthful, beautiful and have a gothic fairytale ending. 

We do like Bella, she is a bit rubbish at P.E. a thing many of us can identify with, she isn’t a primped and preened princess.  She comes from a humble background and is even a bit of a tomboy albeit geek (which is cool you know) preferring to read her books, and she is also quite unassuming and awkward in some social situations making her even more endearing.  But it is that girl, that we can all find a bit of ourselves in and who we really want to see with Edward the dreamy high school heart throb.   Bella has to fend off suitors like Mike and Tyler, politely, and finds herself in the elite circle of the Cullens and in the heart of the ultimate romantic hero, Edward with his perfect face and distracting eyes.  The problem is that sex would be too dangerous!  This is a message that can only reassure parents of its teenage readers.

The real romance may be the relationship between the vampire and the mortal human.  It is longing by the vampire to be part of the fragile mortal world again.  In many past vampire novels and films the vampire is emotionally detached from its victims, they have an appetite for blood, they hunt and they kill.  The modern vampire appears to be more complex and has emotional attachments to humankind despite being superior.  Like the Gods and the mortals, Gods can become jealous of our fragility and immortality which adds depth and meaning to our endeavours.  The vampire appreciates beauty; they are usually learned and intelligent with an inherent class.   Would you rather be devoured by an ignorant monster or a sophisticated vampire? The modern vampire like Edward is at odds with this desire for blood and his blood thirst would be his downfall like the apple and Adam.   We actually feel sorry for Edward and things would be a lot easier for him if he was human, but how boring!  Who would protect Bella from her clumsy self?

Meyers has captured the imagination of a generation of teenage girls and women who like to escape into the remembered exciting and emotional world of a teenage girl.  I for one fully support this escapism.  I would admit that it is not a literary masterpiece; her writing could be pulled apart quite easily by the sharp teeth of critics, but it is a clever route into a fond genre.  Twilight is a romance novel before it is a vampire novel.  It draws on Pride and Prejudice (she finds him really quite rude), Wuthering Heights (an intense impossible fever of love), our bookish adoration of the romantic poets (deep and brooding Byron or the tragic vulnerable poet Keats) the list goes on.  In fact, as a vampire novel, I prefer Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with a Vampire’ which delves into the vampire's relationship with the human world; the characters of Louis and Claudia struggle emotionally as new vampires outside of a world in which they once fitted as a mortal.  ‘Twilight’ delves into a human relationship between the self and the ideal of romance.  This is the idea that romance is above sex and desire, the morally right way to conduct a relationship according to Meyers.  The belief that someone could love you enough to hold back and do ‘the right thing’ and adore you in the same way you adore them.  A fantasy and escape that appears to be a hit for a large female readership, once again, bravo Stephanie Meyers. 

To women of a legal age to drink, this book must only be accompanied by a glass of red wine.